a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 The New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 Because the shark was initially preserved poorly, it began to deteriorate, and the surrounding liquid grew murky. Hirst attributed some of the decay to the fact that the Saatchi Gallery had added bleach to the fluid. [8] In 1993 the gallery skinned the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mould, thus transforming the shark from a chemically preserved intact carcass to a taxidermy mount being displayed in fluid. Hirst commented, "It didn't look as frightening ... You could tell it wasn't real. It had no weight." [8]

Akbar, Arifa. "A formaldehyde frenzy as buyers snap up Hirst works", The Independent, 16 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. Its technical specifications are: "Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution, 213 × 518 × 213cm." [9] Brooks, Richard. "Hirst's shark is sold to America", The Sunday Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2008. Those lessons bore fruit in August 2004, when a commercial halibut fisherman caught a young, five-foot long female great white in the waters off Huntington Beach. After being held in the Malibu pen for three weeks, she was moved to the aquarium for display. Over the next six months, nearly one million people came to see her. “She was an incredible ambassador for white sharks and shark conservation,” says Kochevar. Another shark was caught off Queensland and shipped to Hirst in a 2-month-long journey. Oliver Crimmen, a scientist and fish curator at London’s Natural History Museum, assisted with the preservation of the new specimen in 2006. This involved injecting formaldehyde into the body, as well as soaking it for two weeks in a bath of 7% formalin solution. The original 1991 vitrine was then used to house it.In keeping with the piece's title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don't quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form. [1] Decay and replacement [ edit ] a b Davies, Kerrie (14 April 2010). "The great white art hunter". The Australian . Retrieved 14 April 2012. Created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork that consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine. Suddenly, a large crescent shaped tail flashed only inches before my facemask and a rough object momentarily brushed my belly – a shark! a b Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 October 2007.

Kennedy, Maev "Art market a 'cultural obscenity'", The Guardian, 3 June 2004. Retrieved 1 September 2007. Hirst has made other works subsequently which also feature a preserved shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine: The Immortal [10] (a great white shark, 2005), Wrath of God [11] (2005), Death Explained [12] (the shark is split in two, lengthwise, 2007), Death Denied [13] (2008), The Kingdom [14] (2008) and Leviathan (a basking shark, 2010) [1]. Most sharks need to swim continuously to receive oxygen through their gill slits to survive, however some species, including whitetips, have muscles that pump water through their gills, enabling them to rest. Sharks in British waters Damien Hirst Made the Vitrine Resemble a Fish Tank The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst, 1991, via Fineartmultiple There is also the tantalising prospect that great white sharks may haunt our waters. Great whites – demonised by Jaws!I frequently work on things after a collector has them, I recently called a collector who owns a fly painting because I didn’t like the way it looked, so I changed it slightly.’ While there is a predatory quality to Hirst’s shark, we are also aware that it poses no real threat. Instead, it hangs suspended and unmoving before us like a museum specimen in preserving fluid, for us to stare at with morbid fascination. Many of us may have never seen a shark as close up as this before, and by displaying it in this innocuous, sleep-like state, we can encounter what would normally be a fearsome creature in an entirely new, inert, and medical way.

The researchers say the tag showed that after being released, the shark swam more than 100 miles offshore and to depths of greater than 800 feet. “It’s clear she survived and thrived,” says Kochevar, adding that the shark first swam several hundred miles south along the California coast, “then took a hard right and headed offshore for a while, then returned to the coast. … There’s no question that she was hunting and feeding on her own.” In Monterey, however, biologists working on the aquarium’s shark conservation and ecology project believed it was possible for a great white to survive — and thrive — in one of the facility’s giant display tanks. They also believed that letting the public see these magnificent hunters up close could pay big dividends for their efforts to protect sharks, which are under increasing threat. But could great white sharks be lurking around Scottish seal colonies on the hunt for prey, in particular the Monach Isles, which is home to the second largest grey seal colony in the world? Owing to deterioration of the original 14-foot (4.3m) tiger shark, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 2007 to 2010. [1]Hirst has made a miniature version of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for the Miniature Museum in the Netherlands. In this case, he put a guppy in a box (10 × 3.5 × 5 centimetres) filled with formaldehyde. [16]

The seas off the British Isles are home to many different types of shark, which reflects the remarkable diversity of marine habitats around our shores. As NATURE’s Oceans in Glass shows, displaying a great white — one of the sea’s most impressive predators — has long been a dream of aquariums around the world. But previous efforts to care for the sharks — which can grow to weigh two tons and measure 21 feet long — have largely ended in failure. The great whites proved too big, too aggressive, or too sensitive to live penned up. Some wouldn’t eat, says biologist Dr. Randy Kochevar of the aquarium, “and sharks can’t survive long if they aren’t feeding.” Demonised in the classic 1970s novel and film, Jaws, there can be few creatures that hold such fear and respect. Similar data from other young sharks is beginning to give scientists a picture of how these animals use the ocean and how people could improve conservation efforts, according to Kochevar. There is little question that the great white’s brief stay at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has helped stoke public support for shark research and conservation, he adds. Not long ago, the aquarium’s trustees decided to increase their shark research budget by half a million dollars.Goldstein, Caroline (13 April 2017). "How Many Animals Have Died for Damien Hirst's Art to Live? We Counted". Artnet News . Retrieved 18 June 2022.